Retribution (Book 3 of The Dominion Series)

by Lund, S. E.

  An addiction that, once activated, can never be slaked or overcome.

  "Oh, Eve, now look what you've made me do…"

  CHAPTER TWO

  "Memory is the diary we all carry about with us."

  Oscar Wilde

  Michel releases me, our shared memory dissipating, and I blink rapidly as I struggle to recover from its effect.

  I know now with certainty that he didn't want this existence for me but due to some quirk of my genetics, my inheritance from my mother, I'm resistant to compulsion and he failed to make me forget. I turn away from his overly-emotional expression. I know he's waiting to see my response, to know if this shared memory can overcome my anger and shock at what I've read.

  I don't know if it can.

  I sit on the couch for a moment, trying to catch my breath. Trying to sort through the conflicting emotions that fill me.

  He sits beside me and takes my hand but I pull it away. "Enough, Michel. I need some distance."

  "Distance is the last thing you need now, Eve. Let me show you more. Don't go by the things you wrote in your journal. People change. Feelings change. You loved me when we parted and that's all that matters. If you give yourself a chance, you'll rediscover that love."

  "I don't remember any of it. It’s a story about some woman I don't even know."

  "Did my memory feel like a story?"

  I shake my head. It felt real. Almost as if I remember it as well. My body remembers it but my mind doesn't.

  "Then let me show you one more memory," he says, his voice pleading.

  "Which memory?"

  "Whatever one you want."

  I think for a moment back to what I read. There are so many I'm curious about. The first time we had sex, but that's too dangerous. When he took me to his mansion and played Chopin for me. When he returned from Pittsburgh. When he came to me on the beach in Ipswich.

  "The bombing," I say and I know immediately that's the memory I want to see. It's one I never wrote down in my journal of course. I lost my memories because of it. All I have is an entry the morning of the bombing, expressing my excitement and fear about going to meet with members of the Council of Clairveaux to discuss their plan to kill Soren. That's the very last entry. Two months ago to the day.

  He sighs and says nothing for a moment and I know he's not happy that I picked that memory of them all.

  "Eve…"

  I turn to him and take his hand. "You said any memory. I want your memory from that day. From the time we went to meet the Council. I know from reading news reports that we were in the car traveling along the waterfront when the bomb exploded. Show me your memories of what happened."

  "No," he says and shakes his head. "No, because then you'll know things you shouldn't – things that would still put you at risk. Eve, I've done so much, I've given up so much to protect you. I can't have you at risk ever again."

  "Michel," I say and touch his cheek, cup it with my hand. "Please. Show me what you think I can see safely. I need to know…"

  He closes his eyes and leans into my hand for a moment.

  "Kiss me first," he says.

  "Why?" I say, frowning.

  "Because I'm afraid you'll never kiss me again."

  "You're scaring me, Michel."

  He just shakes his head. Then I close my eyes, leaning my face up for him to kiss me.

  "No," he says, "You kiss me." He pulls me onto his lap so that I'm sitting with my legs on either side of his hips. He places my arms around his neck. "Like this."

  I lean down and press my mouth against his, and when I do, he opens himself to me once more, our minds connecting as our lips part. I'm lost in the kiss, lost in his arms and in his memory.

  He glances around my tiny apartment, seeing it again with a mixture of melancholy and pleasure. He'll have to close it up after, pack up my things, such as they are, and put them in storage. I won't need my apartment or my things any more. He'll sort through some possessions that might be meaningful to me and set them aside. They can go with me to my new life.

  He has so many pleasant memories of my apartment. That first day when he saw how spartan my life was – how different from his life of opulence. How fearless I was to stand up to him, despite knowing what he was, Samurai sword in hand. How unwilling I was to let him in that first night. How, despite my fear, I put up a brave front. Our first fuck – it's memorable because of the intensity and his surprise that it happened at all.

  He sees my old piano and is determined to buy me a nice baby grand for the cottage where I'll live up north in Ipswich with my foster parents. The cottage they already have is tiny and there's not enough room for one so he'll have to find a bigger place for us to live. I must have a piano worthy of my talent.

  He goes to my vanity while I'm busy feeding the cats and picks up the bottle of my perfume from France, determined to keep it for himself. He knows it will be torture to have my scent surrounding him, but it's the one thing of mine he'll allow himself to keep. He'll spray his sheets with it and lie naked in bed, thinking of me safe, out of the world of vampire hunters, studying music instead of science. I'll probably meet some young musician and fall in love, marry, have children of my own, teach at a university. It's too late for me to become what I should have been – a concert pianist – but I can still have a life filled with music.

  The thought of losing me chokes him momentarily but he's determined to see this through. He's been too selfish for too long. He refuses to let another woman he loves die because of him.

  The time comes to leave my apartment, to get in the car and take me to meet my new destiny. A sense of numbness fills him as we drive along the waterfront, as if he's shutting off his emotions in preparation for what is to happen next. If all goes as planned, I'll drink the drug to make me forget, the blast from the bomb will provide a diversion, and Kate's already dead but soon to be burned and maimed body will be buried in my place. The coroner has already been compelled to identify it as mine.

  My death will throw everyone off my trail for good. Soren. Blackstone.

  Julien.

  He squashes down the guilt that wells up inside him at betraying his brother, but he knows that Julien will never leave me alone – not now that Julien and I have been together.

  Aside from Michel, only my foster parents will know who I really am. They've been given new identities and compelled not to divulge my existence to anyone. If all goes according to plan, in a week, I'll be safely tucked away in Ipswich and Michel will never see me again.

  He's made a vow to God to give me up. He'll provide me with a steady supply of his blood to keep me healthy, but in all other respects, I'll be allowed to live a normal life – without him in it.

  I sit beside him on the seat, and when he takes my hand, he can sense that I'm nervous and a bit excited at the prospect of meeting the Council and finally getting my revenge against Soren. He thinks I am so brave and so damn stubborn. If only I'd fully submitted to him right away, none of this would be necessary, but my will is just too strong.

  This is the only way he can think of to save my life, to prevent me from suffering in a future he can barely stand to imagine taking place. A future with me as Soren's weapon, making him the biggest monster to ever walk the face of the Earth, with Michel at his side but unable to help me, forced to watch me fall into perdition. A future with me being worse than dead, a soulless blood slave to Soren and his pantheon of hybrid vampire-Ancient-gods.

  Michel would rather suffer my loss than to see that future and he intends to prevent it. Losing me, faking my death, will give him time to do just that.

  The road ahead is blocked by a fire truck that has responded to a car fire.

  "Looks like a fire of some sort," I say, unaware of the danger I'm about to face.

  That's Michel's cue. He turns to me and takes my face in his hands, grief and tenderness for me making his throat choke.

  "Eve, I love you." He kisses me, his emotions washing over me, bringing tears to
my eyes. "Don't forget that." He reaches into a pocket and takes out a tiny glass ampoule and breaks the tip off it. Inside is a drug to erase all of a certain type of memory made in the past decade. He has to erase them – my memories of names, faces, and events back to my mother's death. "Drink this."

  He knows I can't be compelled to forget but forgetting is the only way I'll give up my vendetta, the only way I won't fall into Soren's trap. He must use this drug, despite the damage it will cause to me.

  I take it from him and examine it. "What is it?"

  "It's to protect you." He pulls me closer, close to tears, his resolve to carry through with this plan waning just a bit as he thinks of the price I'll pay.

  I drink it down, trusting him totally, and he wishes – he just wishes I felt that trust long before this day. Instead of having to send me into oblivion, away from him forever, he and I would be living somewhere along the Welsh coast that I love so much.

  But that will never be.

  "You're so brave." He buries his face in my hair, his mouth on my neck. "Whatever happens," he says, his lips at my ear. "Remember that I love you." He pulls his small crucifix over his head. "This is for you," he says and slips it over my head. I examine the crucifix.

  "It's beautiful." I look up at him. "It's Marguerite's."

  He nods. "It's very old." He holds my face in his hands. "Eve, when you look at the cross, you'll remember that the vampire who gave it to you loved you."

  "I'll remember," I say. I smile at him and he makes a sound deep in his throat and kisses my cheeks, his tongue touching each dimple, one after the other.

  Then an explosion rocks the car and he knows this is the moment that I leave him forever and he can't bear it. He can't bear to have it happen without me saying the words once more.

  "Tell me you love me."

  I smile. "Of course I do."

  "Say it."

  I kiss him. "I love you, Michel."

  He kisses me back, deeply. Then he brushes my hair off my cheek.

  "That should make you feel a bit dizzy."

  As if on cue, I grab hold of the seat.

  "I'm so sorry…" he says, "…but I can't let you go to him."

  He thinks of the plan he's made for me. I'll be whisked away to a safe house with a physician to examine me and a nurse to tend me until I wake up from the effects of the drug. Then, I'll begin a new life.

  But fate intervenes. Another explosion right next to us rocks the car again with its shockwave, this time more intense. Michel wraps his arms around me, covering me with his body. A huge black cloud of smoke and fire envelops the car.

  And then, darkness.

  Even Michel is taken by surprise. He tries to shield me from the blast wave but the concussion is so intense. Michel recovers enough to drag me out of the broken windshield. A medic is already at our vehicle, and checks me over as I lie unconscious on the pavement. He pushes a distraught Michel out of the way, tending to me, checking my pupil response, my breathing, my pulse.

  "Head injury. Her pupils are unequal. We have to get her to a hospital."

  "No," Michel says and leans over me, touching me to see where I've been injured, using his powers to heal what he can but I'll need his blood. "Take her to my estate as planned."

  While they load me into the ambulance, Michel checks on Vasily, who's been seriously injured, his face covered in blood, his legs mangled. He runs his hands over the damaged arteries, sealing them off to prevent blood loss. He can't do anything immediately about the broken bones, but will provide some blood to help him heal.

  "Take him to the closest trauma center."

  They comply, one ambulance whisking Vasily off, the other driving me to a house of Michel's outside of Boston. I'm intubated because my oxygen is too low. Michel asks the medic for a syringe and withdraws a vial of blood from his arm.

  "Give her this," he says, handing them the syringe. "It will stop any further damage from taking place."

  "Will it heal her?" the medic asks, examining the tiny vial.

  He shakes his head. "Too late for that. It will only stop it from progressing. Give it to her now."

  They inject Michel's blood into me and that stops further damage, but the injuries I've received will require extensive physical therapy. But my life has been saved from the future he fears. The future he can't bear to see come to pass, but which dogs his dreams, turning them into nightmares.

  I'm taken into his safe house where a team of doctors and nurses wait on me, checking me over. Once Michel is certain I won't die, and that the damage done to me has stabilized, he leaves and goes to the hospital to see Vasily. He's been in surgery for a broken hip and fractured leg, and despite Michel's attempt to heal him, he has lost a lot of blood. Michel provides a second vial of blood, which will help him heal, but even so, Vasily will never be the same. Michel isn't as powerful as Soren. He can't fully heal a human who's received so much extensive physical damage. All his blood and touch can do is prevent the damage done from getting worse.

  None of this was supposed to happen.

  Someone discovered Michel's plans and tried to turn it to their advantage, planting a bomb that was meant to kill me. It can only be Blackstone. They want to prevent me from being used by Soren. My death would prevent him from taking power until he can create another.

  Michel sits at Vasily's bedside and tries to think through who betrayed him. He looks back in time at everyone he's come into contact with but he can't think straight with both of us, Vasily and me, having been so near to death.

  Someone betrayed him.

  I'm intubated for a brief period until my brain swelling goes down and my breathing stabilizes. Michel sits by my side, holding my hand the entire time. Once I can breathe on my own, they put me in a medically-induced coma. When I've recovered enough, he'll leave me for good. But for now, he sits at my side and cares for me as much as he can, stroking my cheek, holding my hand, kissing my forehead, giving me his blood.

  Then the day comes for them to take me out of the coma and he must say his final goodbye and part of him is starting to crumble, his resolve weakening. But he sees that this is the only way for me to be spared from the future he dreads.

  He leans down and lifts me into his arms, kissing my mouth, my cheeks, my forehead, my neck where he bit me, tears blurring his vision. He hugs me tightly, wanting to prolong this as long as possible, hating this fate, but finally, he lets me go, laying me back down on the hospital bed.

  He nods to the doctor, who infuses my I.V. with a drug to slowly wake me and Michel backs out of the room, standing in the shadows to make sure I do awaken. When the doctor nods to him, Michel knows it's time. Everything is in place to move me from the safe house once I'm stable. I'll go to the cottage in Ipswich where my foster parents wait for my return.

  He leaves the room, the house, the neighborhood. Driving away, his intention to never see me again is firm even as his heart breaks. He thinks briefly of killing himself as a way to ensure he never comes back but now, in his transcended state, nothing but Soren's own hand can kill him.

  He thinks of a way to achieve just that end. He must find a way to destroy both Soren and himself so that neither can threaten me. Planning this is the one thing that will keep Michel away from me, and will keep him from just immersing himself into one of the stasis tanks at the SCU for the next century, until he knows for certain I'm dead and gone.

  We part minds and my face is resting in the crook of Michel's neck, my tears on his skin. I touch the ornate gold crucifix on a chain around my neck.

  Michel gave this to me…

  I sit up and look into his eyes, shaking my head, unable to speak. He tried so hard to avoid this. I can't blame him. I can't hate him, despite all the lies and omissions since we met. They were all motivated by a desire to be good, to be strong, to do the right thing. I'll stay with him, despite what I've read and his role in everything. All the lies – what do they mean when compared to his love?

  Finally, I ki
ss him again because I know he's waiting to see my response, and when I do, I feel relief flood through him and he chokes up for a moment, pulling away from our kiss.

  "I'm so sorry about everything," he says, his voice breaking. "I'll make it up to you. We'll stay here, away from that life. You'll study music. We'll move away, go to Wales if you want."

  "No. I can't leave. We're going to find a way to stop Soren."

  "No, no," he says. "Not after this."

  "Yes," I say. "It's our duty. You know that. We can't run away."

  He just shakes his head. When he starts to speak again, I silence him with another kiss, not letting him try to talk me out of it. Now that I know the whole story, how can I be selfish and ignore my responsibility? I don't let him pull away from me when he tries, and instead, I grind myself against him, my hands pulling him closer.

  "I need you now," I say, kissing him, and I can feel his immediate response to the sound of need in my voice.

  He can't resist me. I'm counting on it.

  I pull my nightgown over my head and press my naked body against him and he gives in, running his hands down my back to my buttocks, which he grabs and squeezes, pulling me against his erection.

  "Oh, God, Eve…"

  I know he didn’t believe this would end the way it has and hope fills him as I move to the side so he can remove his briefs. I can't wait to feel him inside me, for I know that when we join, I'll feel his desire along with my own and I won't need much to have an orgasm. He holds himself for me as I lower myself onto him, gasping with pleasure as he fills me so completely, stretching me, and I clench around him. He strokes my breasts, rubs my nipples between his thumb and fingers, watching my face as I start to ride him, the combined sensations of me on him and him in me so intense.